Although Aruba sounds like a great place for retirement, it could also be the key to your organization's wireless future.

Aruba is a wireless company, recently acquired by Hewlett Packard (HP), that has introduced some very innovative wireless solutions to the market. Solutions that can help businesses of all sizes manage their wireless network more efficiently. I might even call these products game-changing. Here are four great features of Aruba networks ...

1. Aruba wireless = Instant IAP

Integrated access points (IAP) are key to every wireless network's performance. In the past there were two ways to manage your access points. If you had only a few, say less than six, you could make adjusts to each one separately, as needed, to change passwords or other configurations. After your organization acquires more than 6, however, this process becomes cumbersome. At this point many businesses, schools, universities, etc. would adopt a controller system, a piece of hardware that could be attached to all of the wireless access points. The controller could then send any changes needed to all the access points from a central location.

With Aruba’s Instant IAP, the controller is built into the access point, so you can quickly and easily manage all wireless devices in a fraction of the time. This allows you to skip a controller system requiring separate hardware. More importantly, it’s fast and easy.

A typical controller system can take hours to install, and the professional installing it should be certified. It’s not a job for someone not well-versed in the technology. With Instant IAP, the setup takes minutes - which saves on labor costs - and can be accomplished by an IT professional with more general wireless network knowledge.

2. Wireless connection from the Cloud

There is one other option for your wireless network; you can run it from the cloud. In that case you would build a central profile for the network in the cloud, and your access points could be managed from there.

3. Transparency with Airwave

In addition to Instant IAP, Aruba networks also introduced a tool for wireless networks called Airwave. Airwave can integrate into your existing network to give you information about the entire system. It creates a heatmap to show a wireless network manager where there is heavy usage, bottlenecks, dead zones and any problems that occur.

4. ClearPass

Aruba’s ClearPass tool is another device allowing you to partition the wireless network based on your own rules and policies. In the case of a hotel, for example, you can use ClearPass to provide faster access to the networks for your business clients.

Hospitality businesses are constantly upgrading their facilities to attract guests, and today that also means the best and latest technology. What is saved on labor alone can make the investment of new Aruba products worthwhile.

The new offerings with Aruba networks make perfect sense if you have a large organization, but also work for smaller but growing businesses. With Instant IAP, you can start integrating now, configure your network quickly and add access points as you need them. It just got a lot easier to grow and manage a wireless network using these Aruba network tools.